Volume VI

It was not until long after we were back in our cottage that Holmes broke his complete and absorbed silence. He sat coiled in his armchair, his haggard and ascetic face hardly visible amid the blue swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black brows drawn down, his forehead contracted, his eyes vacant and far away. Finally he lay down his pipe and sprang to his feet.

"It won't do, Watson!" said he with a laugh. "Let us walk along the cliffs together and search for ruined mines. We are more likely to find them than clues to this problem."

"Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson" he continued as we skirted the cliffs together.

"Aaaaaaaaagh!" I replied, defining my position as being plummeting down an open mine shaft that I had just that very second discovered.

Fortunately, the end of my fall proved to be more gentle than I could have hoped for as I splashed down into a large pool of warm, pleasant-smelling liquid.

"I said 'calmly'," Holmes berated me. "What, pray, is calm about yelling 'aaaaaaagh'?"

"Holmes, I thought you said Cornwall was full of tin mines."

"So it is, Watson. Or to be more precise, tin can mines. For centuries the Cornish miners have mined and made them to transport various types of food."

"Then, what on earth am I paddling about in? It certainly isn't tin cans."

"Hang on while I get my bearings, Watson," Holmes shouted as he scanned the surrounding area.

"My God, Watson," he cried. "We are surrounded by tin can mines. There's Wheal Baxter's, Wheal Campbell's, Wheal Bachelor's, even Wheal Heinz. I do believe that you have found the Lost Soup Mines Of Jellyman!"

"But Holmes," I demurred, "There is no mining equipment down here, so how could they extract the soup?".

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